Talia's Bodyguard

by Lisa Daniels

  “Why would you try and kill her family?”

  Her eyes narrowed in response. “Nothing personal. Necromancers...” She gave a little shudder as she said the word. “Necromancers should never be allowed into a position of power. It’s too rotten, too evil a power.”

  “But you’re one,” he taunted, taking one step closer. She took one back. “You’re exactly what you hate.”

  An unpleasant sneer curled her lips. “And they’re quite convenient for taking out others, aren’t they?” She took one step back, then turned on her heel to sprint. Janos laughed, a deep rumbling growl in his chest. A human would never outrun him.

  Except he wasn’t alone. Bodies emerged from the shadows of the trees, carrying their wretched scents with them. Some were bones, some were perhaps recently dead. All had blue, glowing eyes, and all lunged towards him, their cold hands trying to grab at him, to drag him down.

  She wanted this! he thought desperately. She wanted him to follow her! If he fell here… he made a mad dash towards where Elodie vanished, but it was no use. Hands scrabbled at him, scratched and dug, faster than he believed possible for those affiliated with the dead. They were supposed to be slow, not fast.

  He let out a long, furious howl and turned on his attackers, struggling with all the weapons at his bidding, and the strength and speed his werewolf form mustered.

  They were cold, dead things, trying their utmost to end his life, and all he could do was fight.

  Chapter Nine – Talia

  Strange, Talia thought, with a surprised leap in her chest, as if her heart had decided to slam itself against her ribcage. Janos isn’t here. She’d glanced around briefly to clock his usual background presence, but he was gone. That werewolf barely even liked leaving to pee, and tried to take his breaks when she took hers, even going so far as to use the women’s facilities as well. He didn’t care about the attitudes of the others, who wondered what the hell a man was doing there. All he cared about was that goddamn duty of his.

  So why wasn’t he here?

  “Oh, wow,” Jake said, when she told him. “Maybe he’s just blending in really well.”

  “He doesn’t blend. I don’t even think he knows how to blend,” she said in annoyance. Then, with a pang of guilt, she said, “I think I’m making him want to quit. I’ve been… well, I’ve not been treating him right.”

  “Oh?” Jake’s warm brown eyes looked into hers, but all Talia could think about in that moment was the sunny yellow color of Janos’. Of how close he’d been to her. How scared she was of taking the next step.

  Nadine seemed to interpret the silence correctly, however. “Did something happen between you two?”

  Urk. “Uh, that is to say… kind of?”

  “’Kind of?’” Nadia glared at her friend. “Okay, now spill the beans. All of them.”

  “I...” What exactly could she say to her friends? We were drunk and we kissed and we liked it, but then I decided to pretend it didn’t happen because I didn’t know what to think and I was still worried about my family?

  To be fair, that probably was the best way to lead, since she’d been cagey with her friends as well when they asked why she was speaking less of her bodyguard than before, and she’d replied that he asked for her not to continually gossip about him. Which seemed like a reasonable excuse at the time. Certainly reasonable enough for her friends to swallow, though she suspected Nadine always knew that it wasn’t quite that straightforward.

  So she told them everything. And when Talia finished, Nadine looked triumphant, while Jake just looked confused.

  “Why’d you run away like that? That dude’s not gonna get it. It’d seem like a straight-up rejection,” Jake admonished. “You don’t yank a guy’s chain around.”

  You mean like what you two do to each other? Talia thought, but of course, didn’t voice that particular sentiment out loud. It wasn’t worth ruining their friendship to open a new can of worms when it came to them. They could just keep doing… whatever it was they were doing.

  She wasn’t going to judge. But now…

  “I wasn’t trying to yank his chain. I just… I was vulnerable at the time. I don’t want to fall into a convenient set of arms just because I’m feeling lonely and touch-starved.”

  “But that’s the perfect time to do something like that!” Jake said, gawping, while Nadine bonked him on the head.

  “No, Jake, she’s right, you stupid. That’s taking advantage. She was right not to do it.”

  Jake, however, sighed. “If you can’t use perfect excuses when they crop up, then what’s the point of them, even?”

  Talia snorted at that, the blush on her cheeks receding slightly. Her expression fell again shortly after. “Well, I’ve probably screwed things up forever. I’m sure he’d just want to stick to the parameters of his job. And when I tried to apologize… I got angry. Because he was being snappy about it. All ‘yeah why don’t you just tell me like an adult’,” she said, mimicking his voice to comic effect, before feeling guilty. “No, that’s not fair. He had a point. I was being childish.” She slumped into a dejected puddle of emotions.

  Yeah. She was being an idiot, wasn’t she? A great big idiot who found it easier to avoid confrontation, rather than discussing things that needed to be discussed. When it came to the emotionally stickier side of things.

  Ah well. If he hadn’t run off, she’d talk to him about it later… but probably after she downed some liquid courage to help loosen her tongue a little. Because yes. They needed to talk about that.

  Not that I can believe someone like him would want to have a necromancer, she thought again, a fresh wave of self-pity coming over her. That’s why we stick to our own magic circle.

  She quickly yanked herself out of self-pity mode as screams penetrated the beautiful, early summer air. Students enjoying picnics and lounging upon soft grass, with the heady smell it produced when cut, gradually turned their attention collectively to the source of the screams when it became clear this wasn’t someone messing around.

  “What the fuck...” Jake squinted, while Nadine was quicker on the mark.

  “I swear, if we’re having yet another necromancer attack, I’m just going to strangle the retard behind it, because seriously, fuck them.”

  So much for the ‘increased protection’, Talia thought, since she knew she had an entire month off for the university to build its defenses against necromancers. Was it a lie? Did they just say it for publicity?

  Because yes—there were more summoned bodies boiling over the grounds, running at inhuman speeds. Students began screaming, and Talia stood up.

  “Fuck this!” she screeched, anger bubbling in her heart. She continued cursing, flinging out the full extent of her power to seize the souls before they were able to do any damage. Now that she knew what she was doing, she ensnared each of them easily enough, plucking them from the grasp of the rogue necromancer. They still hadn’t learned the binding spell to stop this takeover. Evidently they’d never been formally trained, or were able to secure the information that told them how to do it.

  “Fool me once, shame on you,” she said between gritted teeth, scooping up the fifteenth spirit, noting that her cranky old serial killer wasn’t among them. “Fool me twice, shame on freaking me.”

  The initial panic from the students slowed down as they registered that Talia was stopping the things in their tracks.

  “Nice work, Talia!” Nadine said in a hushed voice. “Can you find out who’s doing it?”

  “Maybe,” Talia said, picking up more spirits on the fringes of what she saw. The rogue necromancer was nearby, though she couldn’t tell… couldn’t sense…

  Elodie came sprinting from the university, red-faced, screeching to a halt in front of them. “What’s happening? Not another attack?”

  “No attack,” Talia confirmed. “I’m stopping it.”

  Elodie bobbed her head. “Nice. Easier than last time, is it?”

  “Much,” Talia said, raising
an eyebrow at her friend. Unbidden, Janos’ unwanted suspicions crept again into her mind. About how he thought one of her friends might be behind the attacks, and his biggest suspicions lay upon Elodie.

  Elodie went to the toilet, Talia thought, shaking the suspicion out of her mind as best as she could. And she’s here. Surely I’d be able to sense it’s her if I’m right next to her.

  “I’m going to ask them to find the one who summoned them,” Talia said, “though I wonder if they can know if that person is masked. Or if they recognize the magic signature.”

  At this, something in Elodie’s expression changed. She quickly glanced around. “Where’s your bodyguard?”

  “Hmm?” Talia stared at her friend. The air between them felt… tense, somehow. Out of place. “I don’t know.”

  “I think you should look for him,” she said. “If he’s gone, and this is happening… he might be in danger.”

  It was an odd thing to say, but a chill crept through Talia’s body when she heard the words. “Right.” Where is he? Where is he?

  Elodie let out a scream when another corpse came shambling through the grounds, and she sprinted off. Talia seized it easily, watching her friend disappear, wondering… considering… because her behavior didn’t make any sense at all.

  On a hunch, she asked the spirits to track their master.

  However, they didn’t search, really.

  Oh no… “It’s Elodie,” Talia whispered, horrified.

  They started to eagerly set off in a direction, and then shambled to a confused halt. When she demanded of the nearest one why, it said, “I do not know who originally summoned me.”

  So they couldn’t track down the enemy after all. Though some of them were still trying, wandering in an aimless, ravenous way. Yet… Elodie…

  Had she just run because she believed the corpses would head straight to her?

  Maybe she was listening to Janos when she shouldn’t, but that idea teased its way inside her, and refused to let go.

  “Guys… do you think… do you think Elodie might be the necromancer?”

  “What?” Jake bent closer, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Nadine’s eyes went impossibly wide. “What did you say?”

  She felt miserable as she said, “It was a suspicion Janos had. And it kind of sounded like she was threatening Janos...” Surely, I must be wrong.

  Jake began to say, no, of course not, are you high, or something along those lines, but Nadine went still.

  “Elodie wasn’t around when we had the first attack, right?”

  Right. “Yeah...”

  “Was she around when there was that accident with your family?”

  “No,” Talia said, sinking realization hitting her.

  “No,” Jake echoed. “Not Elodie. The fuck, guys? She’s our friend!”

  “Who might have been hiding the fact that she’s a necromancer,” Talia said, small puzzle pieces clicking together. Elodie’s initial trepidation when finding out what Talia was. The fact that Talia couldn’t sense other magic users. Elodie sometimes attempting to glean information, but Talia had never exactly been forthcoming, because she didn’t know that much about it herself. The opposing necromancer’s skill set seemed to be very similar to Talia’s, before her sister had taught her old words and trained her up. Old words that Elodie certainly never would have overheard.

  “I don’t believe it,” Jake said bluntly, digging his heels in. None of them wanted to, but Elodie had kept herself distant from them for a while.

  “She never really tried to fit in,” Nadine said softly. “Never invited us around to her house. Never offered to do anything, and declined many of the things we did want to do. But I never thought...”

  “How could we?” Talia said. “If she was anything like me, she’d have wanted to hide her powers, too.”

  “But… but why would she attack innocent people?” Jake seemed close to tears, still wearing his baffled expression. “We could’ve died before. She could’ve killed us! It doesn’t make sense!”

  Talia wasn’t sure if sense had anything to do with it.

  Sick, Talia Commanded the corpses to group up and be dismissed. The police could deal with the forensics part. They could deal with securing her friend, if it was true. She sincerely hoped it wasn’t, but the doubt in her heart was heavy. Elodie…

  One more question remained. Where the hell was Janos? She plunged into the Other Side, her world turning into a blur of souls and colors. Maybe she could locate his soul on this side of things… but she couldn’t pick it up at first glance. Living body souls tended to be a little less distinctive than dead body souls.

  If she’s hurt him…

  Talia had to move, opting to go in the direction where most of the corpses had come from. Nadine and Jake were hot on her heels, with Nadine warning Jake not to text Elodie and ask what the hell she was thinking. Around the west side of the building, through the parking lot… finally, the woodland by the park lingered in reach of her senses.

  She brushed over something that made her heart freeze in her chest. Then she began to sprint, her friends yelling behind her.

  But she didn’t plan to stop for anything.

  Chapter Ten – Janos

  Pain. Not enough to stop him from moving, but enough to make his inner alpha yelp and snap out its irritation from how distracting the pain was.

  Back to back with him was another corpse—a most unexpected ally in this sorry venture. Between the two of them, they kept the others at bay, but the ability to constantly re-knit their injuries proved infuriating, at the very least.

  Janos didn’t quite have that same ability, though he certainly regenerated from injuries a lot faster than the average human.

  “Why-won’t-they-damn-well-die,” Janos snarled, wincing when his swipe went bad, and the opposing corpse decided attempting to bite him was a better idea.

  “Think you know the answer to that one, dog,” Thomas Miller replied. The corpse had instantly broken his Command to target Janos, ignored the ones to terrorize the school, and as per his instructions, assisted Talia. By protecting Janos.

  What a strange world they lived in, when the vile, old soul of a killer turned out to be what saved Janos from death. Didn’t mean he liked Thomas Miller, though, because that soul was everything he hated about humanity. But he wasn’t about to turn his nose up at a gift.

  The fight continued, his bones ached, blood seeped from several wounds… until finally, the corpses stopped their attack. A moment later, Talia burst onto the scene, her breaths heavy, body trembling from exertion.

  “Janos! Janos, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he growled as she skidded to a halt in front of him, one hand reaching out to hover over the biggest injury he’d obtained. A sly dig into his arm. “No thanks to Elodie,” he added, as Nadine and Jake appeared as well.

  Talia’s expression flashed over in pain. “I suspected…” She bit her lip. Then narrowed her eyes at the body Thomas Miller was occupying.

  “He helped,” Janos said, before she could say anything. “He helped protect me from the others.”

  “Oh,” she said. “So he didn’t somehow break my instructions after all...”

  “I wanted to strangle her,” Thomas Miller said cheerfully. “But she woulda made the others stop me. She wore that mask again, so I can’t tell you who the whore is, but she’s close!” He seemed far too excited. Janos examined his wounds, letting Talia speak to Thomas Miller, extracting any last information he had, which wasn’t too much.

  “Thank you for your help, Thomas. I think it’s past time I released you.”

  “Hmph. Wouldn’t mind sticking around for longer...” Miller said. But Talia didn’t want him to. She gave him another kindly smile, before finally releasing Thomas Miller’s spirit once and for all, and doing whatever she did to ensure it could never be reached again. Moving on.

  “He didn’t deserve to move on, really,” Talia said once she’d finishe
d. She looked a little paler, a little more exhausted. “He was a wicked old soul that thought it was good.”

  Touching his wound gingerly, Janos sighed. “I’d say most humans think they’re good. Even truly wicked ones like to convince themselves they’re doing God’s work. But whatever he was, at least he was able to do one good thing.”

  “Doesn’t make up for the bad.”

  “No.” Janos checked more closely, satisfied to see his flesh was slowly mending. “It doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean you then forget the good thing, either.”

  Talia didn’t answer him, but noticed the wound healing as well.

  “What are we going to do about Elodie?” Nadine whispered then.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Talia said. “For now, we better get back on scene for the teachers and the police. They might want an explanation for the huge pile of bodies heaped up on the path.”

  Janos kept himself in werewolf form, as his healing worked faster in it, and limped a little as he went with the others back to the clearing, the tamed corpses holding the one Thomas Miller once occupied. Police were already flooding the scene, armed and ready to protect—a much faster response than before, Janos noted ruefully. They pointed guns at them when they arrived, but the group held their hands up, and Rosen was there to stop things from potentially getting ugly when it became known that Talia was animating a few bodies, still.

  Rosen Grieve dragged them all aside to give their own account of events, and appeared very grim once everyone had spoken.

  “Seems she doesn’t know how to bind anything yet,” Rosen said. “We can count ourselves lucky for that, at least. We’ll continue securing the—”

  Gunshots rang out.

  Screaming and chaos started once more, and the rumble of sound made Janos automatically stand in front of Talia—just in time to feel something punch his chest.

  No pain, he thought, staring numbly at the wound, hearing people yell around him while Rosen took out her own gun. Shouldn’t kill me… I’ve had… I can have worse… he fell to his knees. Someone was screaming in his ear. Talia? She shook him as well, but it didn’t help. He stayed awake just long enough to see Rosen Grieve place a bullet into Talia’s former friend, Elodie. For whatever wretched reason, that girl had come back.